Version 2.269 online

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:24 am

Hello All:

  Version 2.269 is online, it has a slicing module included, a video tutorial for which
can be found at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlEt6Cz39FI

  Have fun,
Art

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:33 am

Oh, I promised in the video a photo of the playing card moulds output by the slicer.

Here it is, but photos dont really do it justice.. their pretty cool..

Art

BMeyers · Post by **BMeyers** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 5:36 am

thanks, Art.  Watched the video and particularly where you started over with Headly (sp?) so I could discern how you imported the STL in the first place.  I observed the button, "Load STL" (or similar) but couldn't find that on my own panel under selected props. so, what am I not yet understanding?

brian.

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 8:31 am

Hi Brian:

Sorry about that.. hit the STL button on the tool selctions on the left. Its a small button and Ill make
it larger, its one of several that dont normally show up in your versions..I just turned it on for you so
you may not have noticed it. Also, make sure you are using the devlopment version..

Thx
Art

BMeyers · Post by **BMeyers** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 8:50 am

thanks for the "map" in words.  I didn't look across the dividing line (and my lack of attention that I didn't notice it in the video).  Way cool.

Ken_Shea · Post by **Ken_Shea** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:10 am

Hi Art,
Believe the slicing thickness is defaulting to mm when in inch mode.

Ken

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:20 am

Ken:

  You mean as standard? STL's are usually unitless, that is they have no idea if they are metric or standard..they are just "units". So for example if you load compass, its 300 units tall, so it defaults to 3units per slice...

Art

Ken_Shea · Post by **Ken_Shea** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:30 am

OK, have to wrap my head around that for a bit.

So when the compass is loaded it indicates 2.02 for slice thickness what would that represent.

I'll get it sooner or later :)

Ken_Shea · Post by **Ken_Shea** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:52 am

Art,
Think I understand now, watching the video again helped a lot.

Any chance at some point to be able to control the animate speed, much to fast presently.
Each slice can be selected but it's easy to slide beyond each slice sequentially.

Thanks
Ken

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:25 pm

Ken:

>>So when the compass is loaded it indicates 2.02 for slice thickness what would that represent .

  That would be 2.02inches or 2.02mm's or 2.02carrots or 2.01unicorns. Doesnt matter. When the program loads an
object it sets the slice thickness to 1/100th of the depth of the object so that if you hit "slice" it will only try to do
100 slices. If I hadnt done that someone would have selected .0001 and hit slice, thus taking about 1 million years
to slice4 headly into 300,000 slices.
  So lets say you load an STL and it says 300 high, but you want it to be 3" tall, youd just scale the object to 3 units tall.

  As to speed of simulation, normally one woudl slice to a hundred or more slices and at full speed it will seem slow,
so when using lower numbers just click on the slider, then use the left and right arrow keys to move 1 slice at a time.

Thx
Art

Art

Ken_Shea · Post by **Ken_Shea** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:16 pm

Good thinking Art, you got the bases all covered for us, it's like you can read our minds :D

Post by **ArtF** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:38 pm

I should mention that IF you should decide to press Slice with a few million slices selected, you can hit ESC
to cancel the slicing during the slice..

Art

John S · Post by **John S** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:11 pm

Art, saw the bit at the end of the video where you cut into a deck of cards and you put a g code into your laser to do so.
As I think we share the same make laser how do you get g code into that ?
All I can see is to load an rld file ?

Post by **ArtF** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 2:30 am

Hi John:

Actually, I have 2 lasers. The one I share with you wont accept GCode, only dxf or rld's, ( and Im not sure what
the hell an RLD is..

In that laser I use only DXF's... so it wont run my playing card code. My second laser is a mach4 driven unit. When
Mach4 runs with Darwin, it will trigger my lasers output only in a g1 motion, not a g0. It will put out radiation at a
percentage of max power based on my S-Words command. It also only shoots one shot for each step pulse. (Which gives
me 250 shots per mm, whichis basically like having it on all the time when moving.

  This makes laser cutting and engraving so brain-dead easy I have been doing a lot of laser work indoors with this second unit.
( this is all because its run by the laser control panel in another thread..). This means I havent been braving the cold of my shop to
work on the laser we share. My thought was the design of a 3d printer with a laser diode that cuts cards, and kicks them to a pile
kinda like a modified card shuffling machine. At .3mm per card they may be a bit thick though.. hard to say. And my automatic
card changer ( Bob) is probably not 100% reliable all the time. Ive been pressing CycleStart, when it stops he changes the card and says
OK, and I hit CycleStart  again.. Ill need to build a card changer if I continue on this idea.. he's too expesnsive to feed..

  Anyway, that why you cant load my code, its only for a gcode driven laser, and only if that laser can be trusted to cut only in g1
moves ( and as far as I know, mine is the only one in the world that does that..though I see 2-3 more in the works.
  I have to say though, after using this for quite a while now.. this idea of shooting only when a step pulse is issued is a brilliant
way to control a laser ..should be a standard..

:-)
Art

DanL · Post by **DanL** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 8:13 pm

you just need to convert your other one now, I will finish mine soon just got to make some parts

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